We just resurrected a club this last fall that has been disbanded for a few years. We do not have many members. But I'm wondering how do you make the classwork interesting? It seems like the kids that we have don't want to do the Bible reading or the memory versus or any reading in particular.

All our kids in our club are non-Adventist or non-religious and we are hoping to acquire more next year. We have no Adventist kids in our club this year as none of them want to join.

My suggestion is to not over-emphasize it, but do encourage them to do the reading and offer praise for any progress they make in that area.

I'd still organize the class time around the curricula: teach the honors, do all the group activities called for by the classwork, and practice the worships (we do worship after class time, and each unit takes turns presenting). Ask them to do the reading at home (or listen to it - that's an option for all of the Bible reading and most of the EGW). If they don't do it, they still get the honor patches - just not the class strip. It's important to keep them engaged, otherwise they will never hear you suggest that they do the reading.

You can also try bribery. Kids will go to great lengths for 25 cents or a candy bar, especially if they have to compete for it. That might work for the memorization - not so much for the reading.

Another idea is to do a worship/skit around one of the subject areas for the reading - read each passage aloud together and then develop a series of mini-skits around each passage demonstrating the concepts. You don't have to tell them they are doing the reading requirement when they are researching the skit.

_________________Jim Thomas
The sooner you get behind, the more time you have to catch up.

It would also depend on the age and sex of your kids. 10-year-old boys are attracted to very different things than 14-year-old girls. Your approach could depend greatly on this difference. Is your club full of different ages or is there an age or sex that is more prominent?

My suggestion is to not over-emphasize it, but do encourage them to do the reading and offer praise for any progress they make in that area.

We have encouraged them to read at home and have done praising aswell as giving out gifts.

jomegat wrote:

I'd still organize the class time around the curricula: teach the honors, do all the group activities called for by the classwork, and practice the worships (we do worship after class time, and each unit takes turns presenting). Ask them to do the reading at home (or listen to it - that's an option for all of the Bible reading and most of the EGW). If they don't do it, they still get the honor patches - just not the class strip. It's important to keep them engaged, otherwise they will never hear you suggest that they do the reading.

We do our worship as a group first than into classwork and teaching. The main problem is the classwork. The kids are not reading efficient and always want to keep there hands busy and always want to play games. The last thing they want to do is doing the classwork.

jomegat wrote:

You can also try bribery. Kids will go to great lengths for 25 cents or a candy bar, especially if they have to compete for it. That might work for the memorization - not so much for the reading.

We have tried bribary, That did not get very far. They just keep on complaining.

jomegat wrote:

Another idea is to do a worship/skit around one of the subject areas for the reading - read each passage aloud together and then develop a series of mini-skits around each passage demonstrating the concepts. You don't have to tell them they are doing the reading requirement when they are researching the skit.

We have tried doing a skit and because of there reading level, they have a hard time comprehending and reading out loud.

w126jep wrote:

It would also depend on the age and sex of your kids. 10-year-old boys are attracted to very different things than 14-year-old girls. Your approach could depend greatly on this difference. Is your club full of different ages or is there an age or sex that is more prominent?

We currently have 4 kids, they are a mix of ages. All boys except for 1 girl. We had 8 kids but 4 of them moved away.

The kids seem like they want to be kept physically active and always doing something except for reading. I know the club is all non-adventist. but can a club only work on Honours and not classwork? How would that look if the club did not follow the guideline of the classwork?

Fundraising is the other hard part the kids do not want to take part in.

One of the biggest concerns at the NAD level and one of the main reasons for the revision of the curriculum back in 2011 was the fact that many complained of too much reading. Hence why such words like "listen to" or "its equivalent" have been added. The point is for the Pathfinders to study the material and have an understanding of its concepts and, hopefully, an appreciation. The challenge for the staff member is to find innovative and interesting ways for this to be accomplished. You know your kids, you know their interests. Try to find a healthy way to merge their interests in physical activity and whatever else with the reading material. Perhaps a game where a point is only scored with a goal AND if they can recite a memory verse; reading short bits at a time and acting out or drawing what they read; having them teach the material to others so that they will have to make sure to understand it before they present it; etc. Make sure to ask your staff also for ideas. They might come up with something you hadn't thought of.

One thing I've found that helps with my kids - who are all in Guide this year - is to offer them something active to do. try to incorporate an honor into it. I did this with the Water Science honor. In part of it, you have to come up with a game to help with learning the information. I made a Jeopardy game, with four categories and questions in each. I also involved Companion and Ranger classes in this as well. so they could get the honor too. They loved it.

Another thing I've done is to have the Pathfinder record themselves saying their memory verses with their phones, and then showing it to me in class. This has worked very well.